08-19-2009, 09:43 PM
I think someone posted a story on the Lounge about a guy who got a quote for internet service at something like 0.33 cents for a certain amount of bandwidth. Then he was charged 0.33 dollars per unit when the bill came. The service provider in that case has made the opposite mistake that you made. They see the value less than one, and assume it is a fraction of the whole, when it is a fraction of the percentage. You saw a number greater than one, and assumed it was already meant to be the pennies. It was in fact the dollars and the problem is to convert to cents.
A funny thing happened when I was a senior in high school. I forgot to bring my calculator on the day of a physics test. Besides long division and multiplication, part of solving the problems was to take trig functions and punch them into your calculator. I didn't have my calculator. :ph34r: I worked the problems to the end with the trig functions still in the answer. Then, being way to smart for my own good when I was 18, I *estimated* the decimal equivalent of the trig functions in my head and put it behind one of those squiggly equals signs. :lol:I came close enough that when the science teacher handed back my graded test, he looked at me as if I had just beamed down from the Enterprise. Lot of good this stuff does me now that I work in shipping. :lol:
But yeah, I think it's nice for kids to be able to do simple arithmetic in their heads, and long arithmetic with a pencil and paper, by the end of grade 6. Otherwise, what are we teaching them in all those math classes for six years? Learning how to press x100 on a calculator to get a percentage? Sometime you may not have your calculator, or cell phone, or whatever it is they use these days to figure 2 + 2.
Quote: Also, her district uses the connected math curriculum which apparently eschews teaching kids to learn how to calculate things manually etc. Bah!
A funny thing happened when I was a senior in high school. I forgot to bring my calculator on the day of a physics test. Besides long division and multiplication, part of solving the problems was to take trig functions and punch them into your calculator. I didn't have my calculator. :ph34r: I worked the problems to the end with the trig functions still in the answer. Then, being way to smart for my own good when I was 18, I *estimated* the decimal equivalent of the trig functions in my head and put it behind one of those squiggly equals signs. :lol:I came close enough that when the science teacher handed back my graded test, he looked at me as if I had just beamed down from the Enterprise. Lot of good this stuff does me now that I work in shipping. :lol:
But yeah, I think it's nice for kids to be able to do simple arithmetic in their heads, and long arithmetic with a pencil and paper, by the end of grade 6. Otherwise, what are we teaching them in all those math classes for six years? Learning how to press x100 on a calculator to get a percentage? Sometime you may not have your calculator, or cell phone, or whatever it is they use these days to figure 2 + 2.